Speech from the throne, address in reply 06 December 2023

11:18 -- I'm watching, but there hasn't been much to say. I thought it was interesting that they used a colloquial expression like 'granny flat' during such a formal occasion. I was also appalled by National's beneficiary-bashing: How about turning unpaid labour into paid labour? What about those who can't be self-sufficient for various reasons? - 11:26 -- I'm pro-genetic modification; humans have been selectively breeding animals and plants for millenia, so how is that different? The concept of genetics comes from some monk counting peas, so I'm of the opinion that GM (GE) food is a way of improving the stability of food; if it's clearly marked on the tin, then people can make informed choices. However, I question the suggestion that it could reduce methane emissions. There has been some progress in that area, but ultimately reducing herd numbers is important and this is something that farmers should prepare for. - 11:27 -- That Treaty stuff sounds evil. I'm impressed that the Governor-General kept her cool while reading out all that junk. - 11:34 -- and it's all on! 👩‍💻 - 11:40 -- a climate change denier as assistant Speaker? wtf? - 11:42 -- 'discharging' that role? Is that the correct term, Mr. Bishop? - 11:46 -- lunchtime. I'll keep blogging from 2pm. 👋 - 13:59 -- bought some booze, played a tune. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Address in reply 14:00 -- Chloe and Luxon were having a chat. 14:03 -- 'exert great control over the people' ... that says something about National imo. 14:09 -- It looks like NZ First is sitting in the same seats that they sat in during Jacinda's 2017-2020 Government: to the right of the largest party, which makes them look more important, while ACT is beside Te Pāti Māori (beside the gap between the aisles). 14:11 -- 'the individual family unit knows what's best for families' - James Meager. 14:13 -- 'The Privacy Act ... is a huge barrier to New Zealanders getting the help they need' - that's a worrying thought.🤯 14:18 -- this is more boring than I thought it was going to be; hopefully the opposition bring some fireworks. These Nats sound like rehashed maiden speeches. This speech is by Katie Nimon, Napier MP. 14:25 -- 'the rising tide lifts all boats' ... yes, while drowning the people! 14:27 -- 'landlords, business owners and farmers take great risks to provide services' -- spoken like a rich person's kid! 14:29 -- 'it is unjust to prioritise the urban niceties of Auckland and Wellington' - 14:31 -- Chris Hipkins at the mic... 14:32 -- 'I listened carefully, hoping to see some shred of vision .. a plan to go backwards, not a plan to take New Zealand forwards .. a confused set of priorities .. a Government that has chosen to prioritise the tobacco lobby over the health of young New Zealanders .. a Government that has chosen to prioritise millionaires over salary and wage workers' 'This could well be the beginning of the most shambolic Government in New Zealand's history' 14:34 -- 'Winston Peters once again stole the show, upstaging the Prime Minister throughout the entire process' 'I don't think the change they [the people] are getting is the change that they voted for' 'Tax cuts that are simply unaffordable' 'mega landlords' - he's said that several times. 🤣 'The tax cuts that were being promised by National were a hoax to begin with' 14:37 -- 'There was a reason that they never released their costings during their election campaign, as I think that they didn't have any .. only a few back-of-the-envelope calculations.' 'Morally reprehensible' to use young smokers to pay for their tax cuts. 'Conservatives in the UK' disagree with National's policies. Hmm.... 'Trashing New Zealand's international reputation' with live exports. 14:40 -- 'There is no doubt that this was a cost of living election' 'There is a reason that the incoming Government is thrashing around, attempting to blame the outcoming Government for everything' 'They're trying to blame everybody but themselves when their numbers did not add up' 14:44 -- 'We will seek to bring New Zealanders together, not drive a wedge between Kiwis.' The three 'most egregious examples' from the incoming Government are this: 1. The adoption of Covid-19 conspiracies as government policy. 'Questioning the efficacy of vaccine science' 'A stain on New Zealand's international reputation' 2. Incoming attacks from the Government on our gender-diverse communities: 'Be free to be who they are' 'A country where young people learn to be respectful of diversity and difference' 3. Māori issues - probably the worst of all: 'Based on what we're seeing in the coalition documents of this government, this could be the first government in a generation to go back on those ideas [of improving Māori independence].' 'Simply disgraceful' that the Nats want to cut the extra pay for fluent Māori speakers. 'Non-Māori New Zealanders have nothing to fear from a Māori Health Authority ... we have nothing to fear from a "by Māori, for Māori" approach.' 'Dialling back worker's rights isn't going to take New Zealand forward' 14:51 - Climate Change 'They want to remove the three things that have contributed to that [climate emissions] reduction' 'Greenwashing ... that is going to see New Zealand's climate profile getting worse again' 'I'm not sure that they were fully awake for that part of the discussion' regarding NZ First and agreeing to support ACT's proposed changes to the Overseas Investment Act. 14:54 -- 'I look forward to seeing them progress their legislation on the Kermadecs' 14:55 -- 'I want to take a moment to thank New Zealanders for their support over the last six years ... I do want to take a moment to reflect on what they helped us to achieve over those six years in Government' More New Zealanders in work than ever before: 69.8% employment rate, 281,000 new jobs created by Labour. Closing the gender pay gap: 'I hope that ... that this work that will continue under the incoming Government' 'Extended paid parental leave' 'Abolished prescription charges' 'New options for mental health support' 274,000 benefitting from free apprenticeships and targeted trades training. '1 million free and healthy school lunches' 'Record levels of renewable electricity generation'

David Parker and Damien O'Connor: 'two of the most successful trade ministers in New Zealand's history' '1,800 extra police on the beat under our Government' 'Pacific New Zealanders are a growing and significant part of our economy and society' 'This will be a one-term National Government' - 15:01 -- Chris Luxon at the mic... Ah, so those were maiden speeches. That makes more sense. Parliament is 'the beating heart of New Zealand's democracy' 15:03 -- 'New Zealand is under new management' 'There are laws of politics: if you want lower tax, you vote for us' 15:04 -- 'New Zealanders want National, ACT and NZ First to be the strong government that New Zealand wants' 15:06 -- 'The pledge of the coalition government is that, whether you voted for us or not, we will govern for you' 'There is a strong alignment of our core values, like believing in the dignity of independence.' 15:08 -- 'We are about attitudes on this side of the House, not platitudes' 🤣 'We are about increasing incomes and outcomes' 'Good execution matters; that's measured by results and by outcomes' 15:10 -- 'They're not bad people, but they served under a very bad government ... Labour earned its loss ... it squandered public money' [re: the smaller Labour caucus] 15:12 -- 'The 32 people with survivor's guilt' .. 'a bitter, a twisted and a negative Chris Hipkins' ... 'why is he still here when so little was achieved and so little was delivered?' 'He is like an arsonist' - that's Luxon's metaphor for Chris H. 15:14 -- 'self-reflection might not actually be her thing' - slamming Ginny Andersen. Maybe this is what Muldoon was like? 🤔 15:17 -- 'There is a Government that appreciates that businesses create opportunities for New Zealanders' 'We know that landlords are New Zealanders that are trying to get ahead by investing their savings and providing homes for other New Zealanders' 'They voted for us as a Government of aspiration' 'We want to encourage people to have a go in this country' 15:18 -- 'National campaigned on three key areas' 1. Rebuild the economy to make it work for all New Zealanders 2. We will stop the wasteful spending and get the Government's books back in order 'The ridiculous $16 billion Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme' 'Labour should have adjusted tax rates a long time ago ' 3. Cut red tape to make life easier for small businesses and farmers 'In some sectors, getting things done is more expensive in New Zealand than in any other country in the world' 'Simplify planning rules' 'Significant investment in new and renewable energy generation' - really?🤔 'A better matching of investors with projects to get things done faster' 15:23 - Law and order. 'Serious assaults doubled, gang membership went up by over 70%' 'Restoring personal responsibility as part of our commitment to make communities safer.' '60% more gang members are under home detention under Labour' - check these stats. I'm not sure those sound right. 'Young offender military academies' - I thought they'd ditched that... I guess not. '500 new frontline police officers over our first two years' 15:25 - 'around 40% of our kids are not attending school regularly' - 15:27 -- Marama at the mic... I haven't seen James Shaw around; I guess he's at COP28. 'A democracy relies on fair and honest debate.' 15:29 -- 'we owe it to everyone to create a safe space for public debate.' 15:30 -- 'the leaders of our two biggest parties spent more time telling you who not to vote for ... than they spent time time talking about building the beautiful future that our mokopuna deserve' 15:31 -- 'hope rather than fear, Uncle Winston' .. 'I'm not her uncle' - Winston. 🤣 15:32 -- 'the third-largest party in Parliament, with the biggest caucus we have ever had' 'The largest Māori and Pasifika caucus that we have ever had' 15:34 -- 'devolve power to Māori' - that sounds like something that the Nats want too... 15:35 -- 'I do hope that you will take some comfort knowing that every time that you arrive in Wellington for work, you arrive in a Green electorate of Rongotai, and drive through a Green electorate of Wellington Central' - a message for the coalition leaders. Yeah, this is too schmaltzy for me. I feel like it's a form of virtue-signalling to be this emotional, and it does feel smug: this is a speech for the converted. I preferred Chris Hipkins and his fiery rhetoric. That was the tone imo. 15:41 -- 'prejudice and inequality still shapes so much of our politics' - right on. 15:43 -- 'this Government and its program of performative cruelty' - I think that the Greens are surprisingly negative regarding their opponents, though they mask it behind this mask of smugness that (to crib a reference) feels like people smelling their farts and thinking about how great they are as opposed to their opponents. This is generally effective, though, as it baits ACT and National etc. to say stupid shit about the Greens that they then rebut with evidence. However, if evidence was enough to win the climate change debate, that would have worked by now. I dunno what it would take to meaningfully reduce emissions, but I'm fairly sure that none of the parties in Parliament have that solution. 15:47 -- 'we refuse to spend all our time talking about the next outrageous thing that Mr. Seymour or Mr. Peters said' 15:48 -- 'Our success depends on how we use our power at this moment' - Another point: something that I'd like to know -- rather than the official statements of the parties or their MP's, I'd rather like to know the amount of misinformation that activists and apparatchiks that are (and aren't) officially affiliated with their parties spread. That's where the 2023 election was won/lost imo. - I feel like it's a double-standard to say we want to 'work together' when, like literally all political parties, the Greens are an exclusive group with an exclusive membership. To be fair, I found Katie Nimon's speech equally annoying. 15:53 -- 'We can reduce the outrageous and immoral level of income and wealth inequality' - 15:55 -- David Seymour at the mic... 'It felt like it was written by an ad agency' - David on Marama's speech. 15:56 -- I've been drinking since around 1ish. That's an advantage of blogging from home, and I presume that my Parliamentary friends can still read this via their phones/laptops. 15:58 -- Waiting to see if he says something substantive... all this self-congratulation is wanky. To be fair, I could have chosen to skip this, as Fantasy Parliament is for Question Time, but I was keen to see what was said. 16:00 -- I see Rawiri took a break from all this. TPM often walk outside for a breather, or find novel ways (like teleconferencing) to say their piece. 👋 16:02 -- 'you wouldn't ask Rawiri Waititi if you wanted to know about hard work' 🤬 16:04 -- 'if you look at the raw numbers ... Grant Robertson as Minister of Finance had the job of ensuring that the taxpayer dollar went as far as possible to deliver the services and alleviate the suffering of New Zealanders in a range of areas.' [...] 'Per person, after inflation, he increased expenditure by 30%' - Seymour also said 'jiggery-pokery', which I hadn't heard in ages. - I think that Mr Seymour and Mr Luxon have been aggressively attacking their opponents, and that's really a sign of how much winning has inflated their egos. Hipkins largely attacked policies, not people. That was good imo. 16:08 -- 'In just about every area, we found a Labour Party that spent more money, made more rules and got worse results' - I wonder if Mr Seymour would have been part of Rogernomics-era Labour? 16:09 -- 'Labour's vision was one of central control' 16:11 -- 'we must spend more time producing and less time complying with rules that don't make sense' - from the new Minister for Regulation. 'A vision of empowerment for ordinary people, not a vision of meddling for the few politicians and the not-so-few bureaucrats that Labour hired' 'Spent like drunken sailors' ... 'get this ship back on course' '2017 baselines for public servants will be a starting point' 'When it comes to crime, the time has come to call time on the experiments of Labour' 16:13 -- 'This Government is going to give the courts and police options for young offenders' 'If you're a member of a gang, you're going away for longer' 'It's time to put them back in their place, and that is behind bars' 🤬 Despite the horrific content, I have to admit this speech has some laughs. 16:17 - 'We're going to lift the cap on recognised seasonal employers' 'We're going to redeem a promissory note made to thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, that this is a country that wants you' 'There's another group of people who have been a bit marginalised' - owner-occupiers with boarders. 'Their [Labour's] philosophy was that beatings will continue until morale improves' - wtf? 'We want to say if it's your house and you want to evict someone: you can!' 16:20 - 420 .. I'm out of weed. 🥺

'The ACT Party has more scientists than the Green Party has had, probably in its history' 16:24 - RMA gone and replaced with a law that prioritises property rights. 'Those people who aren't so intellectual, they tend to be afraid of debate' A Māori National MP (James Meager) sitting behind Mr Seymour seems to have issues with all that crap that he's spouting about Treaty Principles.👋 - 16:26 - Winston Peters at the mic... 'Hearing Mr. Hipkins today was actually an astonishing event... bonfire of the stupid vanities that his party had in place, and then he came here and defended it' 'We're all here to do one thing ... you're here to represent everybody as one people called New Zealanders' 'This country was made being one country, or as Dame Whina Cooper said: we signed the Treaty so we could become one people' 16:28 - 'If you're looking for trouble, you've come to the right place' - to other Māori MPs. '54 years of never being in Cabinet' - snarking at Values/Greens. 16:29 - 'every pretension that he's got can be found out in 5 seconds' - on Rawiri and his penchant for cowboy hats. - Still the best speaker today. He articulates crisply and is a master of tone.👍 He's clearly somewhat senile, though. Pauses that I didn't notice during 2018 or 2019. 16:30 - 'I do not like fifth columnists' 16:32 - 'we beat the Serious Fraud Office; not once, but twice.' 16:33 - 'I believe in democracy and I believe in the media... getting back to their jobs, rather than becoming an unelected political party sitting up there [gestures to Press Gallery].' 🤣 - What's the fucking point of this? Jabbing at the media has derailed his speech, and that's stupid. Of course, this is dogwhistling for Sean Plunket and all those alternative media folk that probably got him those votes. Surprisingly, he's thrown fewer nasty insults than Luxon or Seymour. 16:36 - 'I've been around a long time; I know a bunch of losers when I see them' - that's his opinion on the Greens and the Māori Party. This was directed to Efeso. 'New Zealand First is back' - I think his wero to Te Pāti Māori is genuinely interesting. It's something that demands a reasoned response, so hopefully they're not going to rise to his bait. Whether Ngata or Buck are people that have relevance to 21st Century New Zealand is also a live discussion. Most Māori discussions in the popular discourse start in the 1970's, as that's when the so-called revival is said to have begun. 16:40 - 'a race to the bottom from Te Pāti Māori and Māori members of the Labour Party' 'They're making it up as they go along' 16:42 - 'this was an inflection election ... we were on the way to becoming another Venezuela, another Myanmar [if the coalition of delusion hadn't won]' - 16:43 -- Rawiri at the mic... 'Wow, that was entertaining!' - on Winston. 'I stand here to give a speech from the throne of Kingi Tūhetia' 16:44 -- 'To our people: thank you. Thank you for believing in yourselves' 16:46 -- 'Ours is a struggle without end.' 'We are the descendants of navigators' 'We are rangatira who never ceded our sovereignty' 'The Government's agenda is a flashback to the 19th Century' 16:47 -- 'The coalition documents read like a manifesto on white supremacy and cultural genocide' 'This Government is intent on locking up more brown people and throwing away the key' 16:47 -- 'The racist signals that the election of this government has sent are so strong that public service departments are preemptively wiping Te Reo Māori from public documents.' 'You have given all government departments permission to hurt our people.' 16:48 -- 'Māori will not be assimilated. Māori will not be subjugated.' - Rawiri is a hell of a speaker. To be fair, I saw him yesterday at the protest, plus this is my team, but I still reckon he's nailing it. 👍 16:52 -- 'Our core mission remains the same: to realise this vision of an Aotearoa Hou' 16:53 -- 'Te Tiriti is to be honoured' ... Toni Morrison 'racism is a distraction' 16:54 -- 'This government must prepare for a Māori revolution' 'Te Pāti Māori will fight on all fronts' 'We will fight against the short-sightedness of the government' 'We will ensure this government reign is short' - 16:55 -- Debbie at the mic... split call. 'Your hatred has encouraged us to unite' 'Your calls to take us back has been a drive to advance' 'All done via our social media [yesterday's activation]' 'Who said Māori can't keep a secret?' 16:57 -- 'the undisputed, unapologetic voice' 'We are beautiful, huia feathers or not' - referencing something Winston said. 17:01 -- '$17,000 per candidate' vs. '$440,000 per candidate' .. I'm not sure who she's referring to (ACT?). 17:03 -- 'you have started your legacy as Prime Minister attacking Māori' 'I actually believe that he's a decent bloke.' 17:05 -- 'we will stand with the unions to protect your rights and all worker's rights' 'Keep the pressure on ... stay strong.' 'Ignore the loudness, look after our whānau' - I think they've done a good job of that today. Good response to NZ First. 👍 - 17:07 -- All the leaders have spoken; now it's Willie Jackson's turn. This is interesting, but I'm getting pretty tired of taking notes... 17:13 -- Apparently Seymour's iwi kicked him out of the tribe! That's news. 👋 - Post-script: - A quip for David Seymour. BSc people usually shit on BA's, but a BMus is considered to be as difficult as any science course. There's a lot of science within music. 🤣 But honestly, does it really matter whether politicians have that knowledge? Also, I seem to recall Chloe saying on the AM show that she studied post-grad economics; isn't economics a science?